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Chris Elliott has had a long, storied career in film and television playing oddballs, jerks, and weirdos. There’s Chris Peterson, the 30-year-old paperboy in the cult favorite television series Get A Life. Larry, the awkward and aloof cameraman in Groundhog Day. There’s...

AUSTIN -- On the final day of Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Fest, Thomas Middleditch (HBO’s Silicon Valley) performed a spontaneous impression of a Revolution-era judge shouting the name “John Quincy Adams!”
He paused. He laughed. And he asked himself, “What the hell am I...

AUSTIN -- If Friday’s comedians at Fun Fun Fun Fest contended with the low lows of celebrity and popular culture, Saturday’s theme might as well have been “Damn the man, save the Empire.” Politics, politics, and more politics.
W. Kamau Bell’s set, for example,...

AUSTIN -- Once upon a time, before Formula One racing came to roost, before South by Southwest lay at the feet of Microsoft and Doritos, before everyone and their mother moved to the city to catch a whisper of hipness before it vanished into commodity, Austin quietly celebrated...

Theo Von is the human embodiment of a small town success story. Born Theodor Capitani Vonkurnatowski in Convington, Louisiana (about 45 minutes north of New Orleans), the 34-year-old comedian began slinging jokes at a local coffee shop in 2003, driving 40 minutes just to perform...

Jason Bateman, of his directorial debut, Bad Words, offers this gentle caveat: “This movie isn’t for everyone.”
Screened recently at Austin’s South by Southwest festival to a packed auditorium, the film does resist easy consumption. The story centers on a cynical...

AUSTIN – The city of Austin is well known for its quirky eccentricity, as reflected in its mostly official motto, “Keep Austin Weird.” And South by Southwest has a tendency to exacerbate said weirdness, particularly where the comedy scene is concerned.
Today, I have two...

AUSTIN – To borrow the words of the great philosopher Ice Cube, today was a good day. The story kicks off on Tuesday with some serendipitous moments only possible at an event like SXSW, where the city of Austin’s innate quirkiness morphs into something produced and promoted...

AUSTIN – Day 3 of South by Southwest was tightly packed with more comedy delights. Like a really, really thick sausage that kind of sprays hot juice on you when you bite into it because the casing is so strained and taut from the vast amounts of meat inside. (Side note: I...